Park offers taste of the wild side
Wild Play element park opens at West Shore Parks and Rec
With hoots and hollers, Wild Play's newest element park opened to the public this week.
Students from John Stubbs elementary, West Shore Parks and Recreation staff and politicians took to the Monkido course to test their mettle Wednesday. By some accounts, it was a lot harder than it looked.
"It wasn't one of those things where you did it mindlessly," said Les Bjola, WSPR board-chair. "You had to think your way through that course. It's like a ski hill ... this was the first time where I have experienced a true double black diamond Wild Play course."
For the kids course, which includes similar challenges at a lower height, the best part was the zip lines when you didn't have to use your hands, said eight-year-old Ashanti Whyte. The whole course is really fun and not that scary, she added.
Wild Play operates similar parks in Nanaimo and Whistler, but this is the first one so close to an urban area, said general manager Tom Benson. "It's a place where people come to have fun and to challenge themselves," he said. "It's also about getting folks out to appreciate natural space."
Visitors are challenged on zip lines, suspended bridges, scramble nets and swinging logs. Divided into sections, the most difficult course reaches 53 feet into the trees.
"This one is higher than any of our other courses,"Benson said.
There are elements in this park that don't exist at the others and the order of older challenges is mixed up, he said. Early in 2010, Wild Play expects to expand the park for another "surprise new course" that is more challenging than the rest, he added.
Under an agreement with WSPR, three to 3.5 per cent of the annual gross sales will go to the recreation centre. Discounts and some tickets will be made available to recreation centre camps and programs, as well as leadership youth and low-income West Shore families.
